Category: News

Seraphine warns of the cost of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit

Seraphine is warning of the unacceptable risks of a rapidly emerging ‘No Deal’ scenario that threatens years of hard work building global markets.

The warning follows leaked predictions of disruption to UK ports lasting four months, with potentially massive effects on exports and the import of materials. 70 percent of Seraphine’s lines are exported internationally to 40 countries, with 40 percent of all exports going to mainland Europe.

Another imminent danger comes from the Home Secretary’s call for immediate restrictions on freedom of movement for EU citizens working and living in England on 31 October, with no transition period. Seraphine’s UK workforce is evenly split between UK and continental nationals from several countries. Its multilingual and multicultural staff are a business benefit in expanding international markets and their departure would only benefit competitive EU brands.

US firms dominate top 10 VC investors list in IoT

The US was home to majority of the global top 10 venture capital investors in the Internet of Things (IoT) tech space in 2018, according to GlobalData, a data and analytics company.

The top 10 VC investors (Baidu, Amazon Alexa Fund, Intel Capital, Robert Bosch, Northern Light Venture Capital, Khosla Ventures, Parkwalk Advisors, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners and GV Management) participated in 52 funding rounds equating to a total proportionate investment value of US$350.2 million in 2018.

Silver Peak expands channel team

SD-WAN  outfit Silver Peak bolstered its EMEA channel team with the appointments of three regional channel account managers to deepen partner engagement and drive sales growth across the UK, France and Germany. The new appointments include Wayne Newman in the UK and Ireland, Philippe Dufour in France and Sara Ramezanpour in DACH. 

The move follows the launch and expansion of the Silver Peak Partner Edge programme within the last year – including the Global Partner Edge programme, the Cloud Partner Ecosystem expansion, and the Authorised Deployment Partner (ADP) programme – the new channel account managers underscore the company’s commitment to the EMEA region and channel.  The outfit believes that the SD-Wan market is headed for a growth spurt soon.

Gaia seeks buyer after earth cut out from underneath it

Gaia Technologies is seeking a buyer after entering administration.

Two partners at advisory firm FRP Advisory LLP were appointed joint administrators earlier this week and said that Gaia has suffered “severe” cashflow issues over recent months.

Gaia reported sales of £19.5 million  during its most recently reported financial year, ending 31 March 2018 which was a drop of two million on the previous year.

IT Lab swallows Mirus IT

IT Lab has acquired managed services player Mirus IT.

Mirus will take Group revenues for IT Lab past  £75 million and improve the outfit’s managed services operation, which will now have more than 890 clients and 700 staff.

ScanSource offloads its non-digital business

ScanSource has announced it plans to sell its non-digital business across the UK, the rest of Europe, Latin and South America totalling $623 million.

The US distributor posted poor Q4 financials where revenues decreased three percent to $960.8 million and operating income shrank four percent to $29.4 million.

The outfit said it will flog operations worth $623 million in revenues in Europe, including the UK, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Miami in the US. The move will affect around 490 employees in its Barcode and Communications business.

EkkoSense hires Pete Le Noury for growth bid

Data centre simulation specialist EkkoSense has appointed senior global operations specialist Pete Le Noury as the company’s Chief Operations and Chief Financial Officer.

Le Noury has been bought in to drive a planned growth phase. His appointment follows EkkoSense’s recent addition of Adrian Barker from Vertiv as Key Account Director, and also of data centre expert Mark Acton to the company’s board as a non-executive director.

Biometric security measures called into question

The significant breach and vulnerabilities recently discovered by vpnMentor researchers within Suprema’s BioStar 2 database are enough to scare any potential end-user away from biometric security measures, according to Frost & Sullivan security expert Danielle VanZandt.

VanZandt said that with more than a million fingerprint biometrics and user passwords exposed in the breach, BioStar 2 had become the first significant example of how biometric access still has its vulnerabilities that vendors, integrators, and end-users must be aware of before implementing any of these solutions within their organisation, she said

British customer service is getting worse

Helpshift has released new data revealing consumers’ opinions about the state of customer service and it is bad news for the British.

More than 59 percent of British consumers surveyed stated customer service is either not improving or getting worse, in contrast to only 46 percent of French, 45 percent of Americans, 38 percent of Germans and 34 percent of Dutch.

Panduit hires Kandziora

Infrastructure outfit Panduit EMEA has appointed Martin Kandziora as Senior Marketing Manager. He will lead the international and country marketing teams with responsibility for developing and implementing marketing strategy and campaigns across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to support the developing activity of Panduit in the region.

Kandziora was Vice President Marketing and Communications for Rittal, a sizeable privately-owned manufacturer, where he spent 15-years. He holds a diploma in electrical engineering as well as an MBA. Martin Kandziora is involved with various professional associations and committees. He also writes articles for both the German and English-language press.

Feltech rescued from administration

Feltech has been rescued from administration by systems integrator Media Powerhouse, which has acquired its assets in a pre-pack deal.

According to AVinteractive, the St Albans Audiovisual (AV) reseller appointed an administrator on 12 August.   The White knight, in this case, was CEO Michael Breen who said that Feltech had become “heavily indebted”.

SCC sees pay off in IT systems and its Global Delivery centres

SCC has had good figures this financial year thanks to its investments IT systems and its Global Delivery Centres in the UK, Romania and Vietnam.

For the year ended 31 March, the firm saw turnover increase by 18 percent across EMEA to reach £2.2 billion, and operating profit for the UK operation was up by 16.9 percent to £18.7 million.

The UK leads the way with turnover growth of 23 percent, followed by France with 20 percent. SCC’s business saw a four percent improvement in services revenue over last year.